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Intense Parenting Comes at High Cost

A surprising trend among working parents in recent years has been that they are actually spending more time with their kids. But this intense parenting comes with a cost.

Since 1965, married fathers’ time caring for children nearly tripled to an average 7.0 hours a week from 2.5; married moms’ child-care time also rose, by 36%–to 13.9 hours from 10.2 hours, based on research released at a conference Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The child-care hours include only the time parents were focused mainly on the child, such as feeding, clothing, bathing, playing with or reading to the child. It excludes time spent with children present when the parent’s primary focus was something else, such as cooking dinner or watching TV.

Parents are paying for the increase in other realms of life, says the author, Suzanne Bianchi , a sociology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Married mothers spend less time on grooming – 8.2 hours a week, down from 10.1 hours in 1965, her data show; moms are also doing less housework.

Married fathers are also spending less time on grooming–7 hours a week, on average, down from 8.5 hours in 1965. Both mothers and fathers are spending less time on preparing and eating meals, and they are enjoying less leisure time. They also report “feeling always rushed” and that they have too little time for themselves or their partners, Dr. Bianchi told about 200 government officials, researchers and employers at the conference.